


The Straw That Broke the Kraken's Back

by Will_Thor69



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Book 6: The Winds of Winter, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:16:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4302717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Will_Thor69/pseuds/Will_Thor69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon Greyjoy finally snaps and turns on his Bolton captors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Straw That Broke the Kraken's Back

The winter chill was all around Theo- no, no.... The winter chill was all around Reek as he walked into the godswood. Much like Catelyn Stark, Theon had always felt like an intruder or a stranger in these woods, the pale white weirwood's face staring at him accusingly, the endlessly deep pool at the tree's base showing his reflection as his face contorted into a grimace. But that was another life. 

_I do not belong here. I need to leave._

_Where do you belong?_

Theon remembered the images of longships, of bridges over the sea swaying in the wind, the fresh salt air of the sea blowing into his nose as he stood on the docks of Harlaw, the sea stretching out before him as far as his eyes could see. 

_Not Theon... never Theon! I am Reek, Reek, it rhymes with freak!_

The haggard man limped his way to the pond at the godswood and knelt before the tree, staring at its carved face, eyes crying blood. Reek couldn't hold it back; tears flowed from his eyes and he sobbed and choked. Reek remembered, in a past life, an honorable father sitting at this pond, cleaning a big sword, the blade across his knees. He remembered laughter in the yard, as the man he once was practiced sword fighting with the boy who would be king, Robb Stark. He remembered betraying all the friends and family he had ever had and loved and taking the castle, forsaking any shred of honor he ever had. 

_And look where it's led me._

Reek cried into the pool, falling to his hands. He looked at his reflection. The hands short of fingers on the soil, his scarred and bruised face, missing teeth, and the constant flinching, as if he were a whipped dog all flashed through his mind. He remembered standing with Roose Bolton and a woman whose name he could not remember. They had asked him to be Theon, but he had refused, instead _choosing_ to be the whipped dog that fuck Ramsay wanted him to be. He was through being a whipped dog, a serving man, a sick man's plaything to be flayed and burned when his master had an ache to hurt another human being. 

Reek had knelt at the cold pool, but Lord Theon of the House Greyjoy stood, walking back to the castle; not walking as a haggard and limping man, but as the nobleman he was.

He walked through the yard, past the banners emblazoned with flayed men where the direwolf of Stark should be. He walked past knights and men-at-arms, strolling to the Winterfell armory. It had been mostly stripped, but Theon didn't need much. He grabbed a dagger the length of his forearm and a bow with a quiver of arrows. He then exited the armory and walked to the highest turret on the inner wall of the castle, set his quiver down next to him, and knelt.

_Gods... Old Gods, that looked after this castle for thousands of years, please hear me. I betrayed the people you watched over for generations and eons, but today I want to right my wrongs. Please forgive me for what I did, and tell Robb I am coming._

Theon Greyjoy strung an arrow, aimed at a knight, and loosed. The arrow struck into his throat, making him stumble backwards. Men were slow to react, and only did when he fell limply from a staircase into the castle yard. He strung another and his arrow went through the skull of a Frey knight, driving him to the dirt. Men unsheathed their swords and yelled. An alarm bell went off. Theon laughed, remembering the tortures he felt at the hands of the men in this castle. One of his arrows went through the heart of a man pounding up the stairs towards him. Another struck home in the privy parts of a man he'd seen rape a kennelman's daughter. His last arrow buried itself deep in Ramsay Bolton's knee as he exited the hall.

Theon pounded down the stairs, unsheathing the sword of the man he'd killed on it. As a man swiped at his head as he ran, Theon slid under the blade and chopped off the man's leg. Another man ran straight at him, screaming like a bull. Theon used the man's momentum to throw him into a pile of horse manure. As he ran faster than he'd ever ran before, straight to the man he hated more than anything in the world, he felt at peace. 

Ramsay recovered and stood, keeping his left foot off the ground, limping. He saw Theon in his torn and ragged clothing, standing defiant with a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other. The crazed man looked at Theon, the same fire occupying his dirty icy eyes that had filled them as he peeled the skin from Theon's fingers. 

"I thought I'd never see you defy me again, Reek. I have to punish you now, you know that, right? I promise I'll only flay your left arm if you put those blades away. If you try to fight me, you'll loose, and I'll have to peel all of you." At the mention of the torture Theon had endured for so long, he almost shrunk back into himself, and almost became Reek again. But he looked past the open door into Winterfell's hall and saw the Great Seat of House Stark. It had been modified, the stone heads of the direwolves where the seat's occupant rested his hands had been turned into screaming stone heads, the legs changed to flayed arms. 

_For Ned,_ Theon thought.  _For Ned, and Robb, and Catelyn, and Sansa, and Arya, and everyone else these fucking snakes have hurt._

Ramsay put his weight on his wounded foot and screamed. And then he ran toward Theon, nod even limping.

_The crazy bastard_ ,Theon thought. "A false king's legitimization does nothing, bastard." Theon danced around Ramsay's savage blow and scraped the man's neck with his dagger as Ramsay whipped around. "The North knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark."  "I never respected those soft, honorable fools. Neither did my father. That's why we're here, while worms feast on the Starks." Ramsay swung his sword like a cleaver, hacking and smashing.  Theon ducked under a swing and put two inches of his dagger into Ramsay's armpit. Blood coated the man's peasecod as he turned. 

"I'm sure Robb Stark begged for mercy, the craven he was, before my father stabbed him in the heart." Ramsay screamed. 

"As you will, Ramsay Snow."  Ramsay slashed toward Theon's left collarbone.

Theon blocked the slash and stabbed Ramsay in the stomach with his dagger, and as Ramsay dropped his sword in pain and surprise, shoved his sword all the way through Ramsay's privy parts. The man screamed, begged, and cried, thrashing on the dirt like a dying animal. Theon would have felt remorse if he didn't know Ramsay had done this to men dozens of times.  Theon knelt and pulled the sword from Ramsay's loins, and pulled the dagger to the side, opening Ramsays's stomach up.

As he screamed and kicked, Theon walked into the Great Hall.  Roose Bolton sat in the Great Seat, picking absentmindedly at his fingernails. 

"Ramsay was never trained properly in swordsmanship." Roose said, almost whispering, as he always did. 

"Were you?" Theon asked. 

"Of course. After my father outlived his usefulness as lord, I dueled him in his chambers and cut his head off, then went back to sleep. Everyone blamed it on an assassin. But it was me. I just wanted a taste of power. But then I found out what that meant. Manipulation. Betrayal. And in the midst of it all, my liege lord, Eddard Stark, honorable and as stable as a rock in the fast flowing river of lordship. I wasn't jealous, see. I was just... curious as to why I wasn't like that. And then I realized I wasn't like the others. Wasn't honorable or nice, didn't play fair or fight fair, either. So when Robb Stark marched to war and made stupid mistakes, I seized my opportunity to become a more powerful man. So when I shoved a sword into Robb Stark's heart, I felt no remorse. I felt pride. And now, either you will kill me and send me to my fate, or I will kill you and try to win a battle against Stannis Baratheon. Good luck to you, my lord."

Roose bowed and unsheathed his sword, walking towards Theon.  Roose's first stroke was inhumanly fast, and Theon almost wasn't fast enough to block it. It sent tremors down his arm. The next stroke shaved Theon's right shoulder as he barely dodged out of the way. Roose's next swing, again impossibly fast, literally bent the steel of Theon's sword to the point it was unusable. Theon quickly unsheathed his dagger, readying it to parry a thrust-

Something hot entered his chest, as if he had sipped a cup of hot tea and felt it in him. But it stung a bit, and... what was that? Why was he so, so warm?

Theon looked down and saw four inches of Roose Bolton's longsword buried in his chest. 

_I'm coming, Robb._

Theon grabbed the hilt of the blade and pulled it  _into himself_ , pulling Roose closer with it. Theon felt the life draining from him as his blood pumped from his chest in great pumps as his heart beat. Roose was within a foot of Theon, an expression of awe, fear, and bewilderment on his face. 

"Robb Stark sends his regards." Theon buried his dagger hilt-deep into Roose Bolton's heart, and twisted. 


End file.
